She said, “At any rate, for every Luciano, Costello, or Capone, there were a thousand petty thieves, dope peddlers, counterfeiters, and so forth whose average take, over the years spent in crime, was less than that of a worker in industry, especially when one considers the years in prison. Let me see if I can remember his name… yes, Willy ‘The Actor’ Sutton, one of the most successful bank robbers. He once figured out that during the forty years in which he had been engaged in crime, or was imprisoned, he had averaged less than two thousand dollars a year in ‘take-home pay.’ Of course, deducted from his gross income were bribes to the police and crooked politicians, lawyers’ fees, exorbitant prices for hideouts, and other professional expenses.”
“What’s your point?”
“You asked what happened to the criminal element when our new Society of the Golden Rule emerged. Certainly, a few Godfathers of the Mafia and such well-to-do criminals opposed the new way of things as strongly as any capitalist. But the overwhelming majority of smaller fry were as much in support of the changes as their more law-abiding citizens.”
Julian slumped back, tossing his notes to the table once again.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been being very righteous all along here. But the fact of the matter is that when I was the head of West Enterprises, it sometimes became difficult to figure out where honesty ended and crime began. I’ve been hauled into court several times.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know, Jule. Remember, along with my father and mother, I have studied your life just about all my life. I probably know things about you that you don’t…”
He scowled at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She got to her feet and walked over to one of her father’s bookshelves. “Father is one of the last of the book collectors. If he had his way, he’d have a thousand volumes rather than relying on the International Data Banks. Now, where in the devil is the one I want?”
He waited for her to find whatever it was she was looking for. Eventually, she returned.
“Ferdinand Lundberg,” she said.
“I’ll be damned. I know that name. Seems to me he was a professor at one of the big schools. He wrote a couple of muckraker books, as I recall. I don’t think I read them.”
“Yes,” she said grimly. “You with your talk of crime, darling. Listen to this:
“’Most offenses open to members of the upper socioeconomic class… were dealt with by special administrative tribunals. The offenses were mostly variants of fraud or conspiracy. When they were committed against the broad public they called for relatively light penalties, seldom prison terms. Verdicts against the offender were often carefully phrased so as to be non-stigmatic… Even when a member of the upper socioeconomic class was found guilty of a stigmatic crime and was about to be sentenced, there was a marked difference in the language of the judge. Often in the case of a culprit of the lower classes the judge administered a savage tongue-lashing, while the defendant hung his head and his family sobbed, terrorized. But when upper-class culprits had been convicted in criminal court of using the mails to defraud the general public, the judge… typically began by saying: “You are men of affairs, of experience, of refinement and culture, of excellent reputation and standing in the business and social world.” They were in fact, as the judicial process had just disclosed, criminals. This difference in attitude of judges is often pronounced. Severely reprehensive toward members of the lower classes, the judges become wistful, melancholy, or sadly philosophical when sentencing men of the upper class. (After all, they both come from the same class, may have gone to the same school, and may belong to the same clubs.)… Many members of the upper classes did commit offenses for which the government held them accountable. But in most cases special arrangements had been made to handle them with kid gloves and in many cases to administer by way of punishment a slap on the wrist.’”
Julian laughed.
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s funny?”
He rubbed a hand over his chin. “Nothing, really. It’s absolutely true. Actually, I didn’t usually even appear in court. My attorneys represented me. One of the judges I remember was in college with me. We used to call him Fartface.”
“Fartface?”
“One of those taboo four-letter words your father mentioned. At any rate, he was on the take and—”
“On the take?”
“Ummm… that is, he was susceptible to bribery if you handled it in a careful, civilized manner.”
“How in the world did you handle bribery in a careful, civilized manner?”
He looked at her, knowing she wouldn’t understand what he was going to say. “In this particular case I gave his daughter a wedding present… fifty thousand dollars.” He added absently, “Tax free, obviously. Fifty thousand dollars from my account in Switzerland, in thousand-dollar bills.”
She was wide-eyed. “What did you get in return?”
He considered, remembering back down over the years. “Actually, what was involved was one of the smaller countries in Central America.”
Edith was incredulous. “You mean you bought a whole country?”
He said wearily, “That isn’t the way it works. It’s very complicated and, in fact, I don’t know how it works. I had people who worked for me who knew how it works. That’s how we all operated: Hughes, Getty, all of us. We could hire brains; we didn’t have to have any.”
She said, “I can’t believe this.”
“I gave you the wrong idea. I didn’t buy a country. Who in the hell wants a country? You’d have to worry about schools, hospitals, all the rest of it. What I bought was… well, control of everything that was worth owning in the country. The right to exploit it.” He added cynically, “Including the president and senate. Come to think of it, whether or not they were worth owning is moot.”
She regarded him coldly and said, “I think your actions were disgusting.”
He came to his feet.
“Yes, I know. Looking back on it, so do I.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Year 1949
The nightmare was not a new one. It was as vivid as any of the others, though not so upsetting as the war dreams.
The event which came back to him had taken place when he was about fifteen, a teenager. His parents had died in the racing crash only the year before, and his uncle, who had taken over the raising of the heir to the West Enterprises fortune, had suggested a world cruise to take his mind off the tragedy.
The luxury cruise ship had traveled east from New York, and the early weeks of the trip weren’t of particular interest to the young Julian. He had been to Europe many times, many times he had sailed in the Mediterranean. However, once they passed through the Suez Canal and entered the Red Sea, he was in new territory. From Aden, at that time as British as Gibraltar, they had taken off across the Arabian Sea for Bombay, their first Indian port.
He took one of the passenger launches from the ship to the harbor landing before the Gateway to India.
He sat in the bow looking at the harbor with its myriad strange-looking craft. He had never seen lateen sails before, let alone outriggers. The vessels were a study in contrasts, ranging from such ultra-modern ships as their own Scandinavian steamer, to Arab dhows. The guide who had accompanied them from the ship to show them the city, explained that the dhows sailed all the way from Africa, during the monsoon season, and had been doing so since before the days of the Roman Empire.
Julian was one of the first off the launch. As a result, he was the first to be accosted by the beggars. There were at least a dozen of them, barefoot, ragged, dirty; the women all had at least one child, usually naked. Julian winced, being a sensitive boy at this point in his life, but he hadn’t as yet changed any money and carried only traveller’s checks. He had never seem a grimier lot, all thin to the point of emaciation.